Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
350 experts call on PM to address president’s ‘dangerous’ and ‘irresponsible’ claims
Boris Johnson is being urged by 350 leading climate researchers to robustly challenge Donald Trump on his “dangerous” and “irresponsible” denial of the risks of climate change during the US president’s visit to the UK this week.
Putting the prime minister under more pressure over his stance on global heating, leading academics involved in climate research said he must try to persuade Trump to take strong domestic and international action.
White House rejects invitation to Wednesday’s judiciary committee hearing but reserves right to attend in future
President Donald Trump and his lawyers will not participate in a congressional impeachment hearing this week, the White House has said, citing a lack of “fundamental fairness”.
Trump’s aides responded defiantly on Sunday to the first of two crucial deadlines he faces in Congress this week as Democrats prepare to shift the focus of their impeachment inquiry from fact-finding to the consideration of possible charges of misconduct over his dealings with Ukraine.
The US president arrives this week from a split nation amid signs of a Democratic revival
Reality. We all used to know what it meant. The world as it is. Objective facts that provide the foundation for rational – not emotional – judgments and actions.
But the old definition of reality has taken a serious beating during the nearly three years Donald Trump, the reality-show president, has been in office. Partly because Trump himself seems to live in a reality separate from the one most of us inhabit. Partly because too many people still can’t accept the objective facts of his presidency.
Amid strategic U-turns and elevation of war crimes defendants, president’s military support weakens – but Fox pundits back him
On Thursday night, a besuited Donald Trump appeared at a US airbase in Afghanistan, serving Thanksgiving turkey to the troops, complaining half-jokingly about the length of his surprise trip, and drawing attention to all the money he had spent on the military.
“You’ll come back,” the president told soldiers at the Bagram base – a remark interpreted by the reporters covering the event as a reference to the quality of the food he was giving them, rather than warning of further tours of duty in a war that is already 18 years old.
Analysts say an indictment is likely as prosecutors focus on Giuliani’s work for Trump and himself in Ukraine
When the former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani emerged as one of Donald Trump’s most bareknuckle defenders during the Russia investigation, attacking his former colleagues in the justice department, people asked: “What happened to Rudy?”
Public testimony in the impeachment hearings has painted a vivid picture of a president fixated on one thing: his own political gain over the fortunes of an ally
Darkness had settled over Kyiv on the evening of 24 April when Marie Yovanovitch, then US ambassador to Ukraine, wassummoned froman event she was hosting at her home to answer an urgent phone call from Washington.
The reception was to honor Kateryna Handzyuk, a young anti-corruption activist who died last year from an acid attack. Though the ambassador and the activist had never met, they shared a mission: trying to end a culture of corruption that has persisted for decades in the former Soviet republic.
Trump claims US-Taliban talks are back on but it is unclear if key disputes have been settled
Donald Trump says talks with the Taliban are back on but it is unclear if the disputes that hobbled the last attempt to reach a peace deal – cancelled by a presidential tweet in September – have been resolved.
The insurgent group responded to Trump by telling Agence France-Presse it was “way too early” to discuss resuming direct talks.
President makes Thanksgiving visit to airbase near Kabul
Confirms talks with extremists have resumed
Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to US troops in Afghanistan on Thursday, his first visit to the country where the US has been at war since late 2001.
It has been a bad week for Beijing, with new support for pro-democracy protesters and detailed evidence of the repression in the north-western region
Beijing was never going to welcome the news that the US had passed a law backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. But its anger today at Donald Trump’s signing of a bill it condemns as “full of prejudice and arrogance” perhaps had extra bite. This was its third blow in a week. On Monday, leaders woke up to a pro-democracy landslide in Hong Kong’s local elections, and the publication of leaked documents exposing the workings of internment camps in Xinjiang, where at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims are believed to be detained.
China’s bullishness has already been challenged by the trade war and slowing economic growth, now at a 27-year low. Mr Trump has previously made it clear that he regards Hong Kong’s protesters as leverage, and has shown he does not want this law to hinder a trade deal that both sides need and appear to be close to agreeing. China is hoping he will not implement the law, which enables sanctions on individuals and the revocation of the region’s special trade status if annual reviews find that it has not retained sufficient autonomy.
The US Navy has thrown out plans to review three officers under scrutiny following Donald Trump’s decision to intervene in a related case.
Trump issued a direct order to halt disciplinary measures against a Navy Seal accused of war crimes in Iraq. On Sunday, defense secretary Mark Esper fired the navy secretary Richard Spencer after Spencer resisted pressure to intervene in the case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher.
As part of a sting operation, federal agents enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to a Detroit school that marketed graduate programs in technology and computer science. The students paid about $12,000 in tuition and fees per year to attend the university, which was created in 2015.
The students had arrived legally in the U.S. on student visas, but since the University of Farmington was later revealed to be a creation of federal agents, they lost their immigration status after it was shut down in January. The school was located on Northwestern Highway near 13 Mile Road in Farmington Hills and staffed with undercover agents posing as university officials...
Attorneys for the students arrested said they were unfairly trapped by the U.S. government since the Department of Homeland Security had said on its website that the university was legitimate. An accreditation agency that was working with the U.S. on its sting operation also listed the university as legitimate...
No one has filed a lawsuit or claim against the U.S. government for collecting the money or for allegedly entrapping the students.
Attorneys for ICE and the Department of Justice maintain that the students should have known it was not a legitimate university because it did not have classes in a physical location. Some CPT programs have classes combined with work programs at companies.
But Donald Trump’s decision to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs) has been questioned by experts, who argue that the move’s main impact would be cosmetic – although it might provide a pretext for possible US military incursions.
Mark Sandy said unnamed individuals from budget office resigned in part over Trump’s aid freeze, according to closed-door deposition
A lawyer for the White House’s budget office resigned partly because of concerns over Donald Trump’s freeze on military aid to Ukraine, a longtime career official from the office has testified to Congress behind closed doors.
Mark Sandy of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) told the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry that an individual in the office’s legal division quit in part over issues with the suspension of security assistance to Ukraine, according to a transcript of his deposition released on Tuesday.
When the FiveThirtyEight polling average on impeachment dipped by a few points last week, Trump’s allies rushed to claim that the slight decline was evidence of the American public turning against the inquiry.
But additional polls appear to have debunked that claim. It seems the recent damning testimony from current and former Trump officials like Gordon Sondland and Fiona Hill has not moved the needle much, with around half of Americans supporting the impeachment of the president.
Finally getting a few more impeachment polls and the notion that the numbers are moving against Democrats isn't looking so hot. +4 spread on supporting impeachment/removal, which is similar to the peak in October.https://t.co/Tj71WyGT4xpic.twitter.com/S7iUHaRdlX
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has announced he will deliver remarks to the media at 11 a.m. ET. It’s unclear whether Pompeo will also take questions from reporters, who would inevitably ask about the cabinet member’s role in the Ukraine controversy.
A federal judge has ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn must testify before the House Judiciary Committee, a decision that could have major implications for the House’s impeachment probe.
BREAKING: A federal judge on Monday ordered Don McGahn must testify to Congress about his time as the Trump WH's top lawyer, a ruling that will add pressure on other Trump officials tied to the impeachment probe. Decision here: https://t.co/6FeuuCrO5gpic.twitter.com/sQ0PubTxqW
MONEY QUOTE: Jackson indicates that any "current or former" senior WH aide subpoenaed by a House committee must at least appear for testimony -- even if they claim privilege while testifying. pic.twitter.com/7DEYdItZLG
In the response to a freedom of information lawsuit by the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative journalism nonprofit, a federal judge has ordered the release of hundreds of pages of communications between Defense Department officials and others over stalled American aid to Ukraine.
Judge orders release of documents of communications between the Pentagon’s comptroller, DOD and White House OMB over the delay in stalled Ukraine aid. Must turn over 106 pages to Center for Public Integrity by Dec. 12. Another 100 by Dec. 20 in FOIA suit https://t.co/HuVEZOj3OG
The US president has honoured the military dog that participated in the special forces raid which resulted in the death of the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Congressional Republicans dug deep in defense of Donald Trump over the weekend, frustrating Democratic hopes that the impeachment inquiry would build bipartisan support following weeks of testimony laying out how Trump attempted to extract a political “favor” from Ukraine in exchange for official acts.
House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff blasted former national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday, for failing to appear for testimony in the impeachment inquiry while teasing a forthcoming memoir.
Two Soviet-born Americans who form a key link between Donald Trump and Ukraine “weren’t James Bond”, the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said on Saturday, insisting the men “didn’t have personal communications with the president” during a time period under intense scrutiny in the impeachment inquiry.
From Gyneth Paltrow to Trump, today’s stars speak directly to their fans. But are they really controlling their message?
I have a friend, Adam, who is an autograph seller – a niche profession, and one that is getting more niche by the day. When we met for breakfast last month he was looking despondent.
“Everyone takes selfies these days,” he said sadly, picking at his scrambled eggs. “It’s never autographs any more. They just want photos of themselves with celebrities.”